About 30 minutes into a new documentary featuring testimonies of Israeli soldiers about being deployed to Gaza, a soldier reflects on the enclave after months of sustained Israeli war on it: \u201cTerrible heat. Sand. Stench. And dogs wandering around in packs. They eat dead bodies \u2026 It\u2019s horrifying \u2026 It\u2019s a kind of zombie apocalypse. No trees. No bushes. No roads. There\u2019s nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The documentary, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel\u2019s War, shown on UK network ITV on Monday, featured Israeli soldiers, some speaking of shame at having participated in what they concede is a genocide, others unflinchingly detailing the nature of that war.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Included are the details of a firing policy that takes little to no account of cause, the wholesale destruction of property and homes, the systematic use of human shields, drone warfare and indiscriminate killing tied to a weaponised system of aid.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t think about it,\u201d one participant, credited as Eli, tells the camera. \u201cBecause if you do think about it, you\u2019ll want to kill yourself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you take a moment to try and think about it, you want to scream,\u201d he says, his face blacked out to obscure his identity.<\/p>\n Through its two years of genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has killed more than 69,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more. International agencies say it will be decades before the enclave recovers, if it ever does.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s own intelligence suggests that 83 percent of those it has killed in Gaza were civilians.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018There are no civilians in Gaza,\u2019 you hear it all the time,\u201d Daniel, a commander with an Israeli tank unit, said. Another contributor, Major Neta Caspin, described a conversation with her brigade\u2019s rabbi.<\/p>\n \u201c[He] sat down next to me and spent half an hour explaining why we must be just like they [Hamas] were on 7 October 2023. That we must take revenge on all of them, including civilians \u2026 that this is the only way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Hamas\u2019s armed wing led an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, during which 1,139 people died and about 250 were taken captive.<\/p>\n Armoured Corps Captain Yotam Vilk described the suspension of all rules for firing on civilians \u2013 that they must have the means, intention and ability to pose a threat to Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as means, intent and ability in Gaza,\u201d Vilk explained. \u201cIt\u2019s just \u2018a suspicion of walking where it\u2019s not allowed\u2019,\u201d he said, describing the overcrowded and chaotic interior of Gaza, where the precise limits on movement were known predominantly to Israeli troops alone.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who crosses the line is automatically incriminated and can be put to death,\u201d Vilk added.<\/p>\n Throughout its war, Israel has denied the growing number of accusations of war crimes from multiple bodies, claiming that it has investigated any credible allegations.<\/p>\n However, in August, a report<\/a> by UK monitor Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) showed that, of the limited investigations into accusations of war crimes by military investigators, including the killing of 15 paramedics in April, few have resulted in any action.<\/p>\n Responding to Israeli denials that it did not use human shields, tank commander Daniel was clear that the army \u201cis lying\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s called the \u2018mosquito protocol\u2019,\u201d he said of the routine practice of seizing Palestinian civilians, strapping an iPhone to them and using them to explore suspected Hamas holdouts remotely.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery company has its own \u2018mosquito\u2019,\u201d he said, referring to captured Palestinians as insects. \u201cThat\u2019s three Palestinians per battalion, nine to 12 per brigade, then dozens, if not hundreds, per division.\u201d<\/p>\n Some soldiers in his unit decided to release two teenage human shields they had captured out of concern they were breaking international law, Daniel recalled, adding that a senior officer said at the time: \u201cSoldiers don\u2019t need to know about international law, just the \u2018[Israeli military] spirit\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Through its two years of war on Gaza, Israel has destroyed or damaged 92 percent of its housing stock and displaced at least 1.9 million people, according to the UN<\/a>, many multiple times.<\/p>\n All the institutions, from universities to hospitals, that make up a society have been targeted for destruction. Social media videos uploaded by Israeli soldiers show an orgy of violence, with Palestinian homes and belongings ransacked and held up for ridicule by soldiers.<\/p>\n \u201cYou feel that every day could be your last and that you can do anything,\u201d one conscript who only gave his name as \u201cYaakov\u201d said. \u201cNot out of revenge, but just because you can.\u201d<\/p>\nRecommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Free fire<\/h2>\n
Mosquitoes<\/h2>\n
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Destruction<\/h2>\n
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